Quick 970 VS 980 question

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chenw

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This isn't an ordinary post of comparing a 970 to a 980, but there is someone I know that adamantly says a 970 is a 980 that uses subpar parts because, as he quotes: "Interestingly, the GeForce GTX 970 was the one card of this Maxwell release where all of NVIDIA's partners chose to go the route of custom designs rather than adopting the NVIDIA reference design."

He draws his conclusion based on that, 970 being junk 980s and manufacturers using whatever PCB they had left over.

Any truth to this or is he pulling stuff out of nowhere?

Not that I am actually regreting (or caring, since if 970 using junk parts and 1/5th of its cores disabled, and yet being within hairs breath of 980, it speaks even less for 980), because my 970's are working fine, and don't really care if they are made from subpar parts if they work for as long as I intended them to work.
 
I have no proof, but I'm 99.999999% sure the GTX 970 is a design in and of itself, not a crippled 980. Both cards have been out long enough that the myriad reviews would have boldly mentioned crippling were it true.

I have a 980 and intend to buy a 970 for my second rig. I have no worry or concern that a 970 is anything short of a new, superb, and first-class component.
 
rpjkw11 said:
I have no proof, but I'm 99.999999% sure the GTX 970 is a design in and of itself, not a crippled 980. Both cards have been out long enough that the myriad reviews would have boldly mentioned crippling were it true.

I have a 980 and intend to buy a 970 for my second rig. I have no worry or concern that a 970 is anything short of a new, superb, and first-class component.
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A 970 is a 980 with 384 of its cores chopped off.
 
I am not in doubt over the 970 VS 980 when it comes to the GPU itself (in fact, if anything, the proportion of active cores compared to its performance weighs for the 970 more than the 980, it seems to less performance than it loses cores).

But the guy seems adamant in saying that the ENTIRE 970 is made with 'junk' and 'substandard' (he is based that purely on manufacturer's desire to use their own PCB rather than using nVidia's reference design). But I have NEVER seen anyone mentioning that in a negative light, except that guy...

This is more an educational inquiry more than a purchase decision, I had been strongly advocating 970's over 980's because the price per performance ratio of 970 is simply too high to suggest 980 as a practical choice (as you can probably tell, I am heavily biased against 980), and I still believe 970 is the better version unless one is looking for absolutely every ounce of performance.
 
chenw said:
This isn't an ordinary post of comparing a 970 to a 980, but there is someone I know that adamantly says a 970 is a 980 that uses subpar parts because, as he quotes: "Interestingly, the GeForce GTX 970 was the one card of this Maxwell release where all of NVIDIA's partners chose to go the route of custom designs rather than adopting the NVIDIA reference design."

He draws his conclusion based on that, 970 being junk 980s and manufacturers using whatever PCB they had left over.

Any truth to this or is he pulling stuff out of nowhere?

Not that I am actually regreting (or caring, since if 970 using junk parts and 1/5th of its cores disabled, and yet being within hairs breath of 980, it speaks even less for 980), because my 970's are working fine, and don't really care if they are made from subpar parts if they work for as long as I intended them to work.
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He's pulling shit out of his ass. There is no information anywhere to lead any (reasonable) person to that conclusion.
 
Quoting from here: http://anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/7

For today’s launch NVIDIA will be doing a reference launch of the GTX 980, so reference cards will be well represented while production of customized cards ramps up. Meanwhile GTX 970 is a pure virtual launch, meaning there will not be any reference cards at all. NVIDIA’s partners will be launching with customized designs right away, many of which will be carried over from their GTX 600/700 card designs.
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I think the fact that we've seen very similar PCB designs to existing products speaks to this: NVIDIA didn't create a reference design because they didn't need to; their partners already had PCB designs that would work perfectly fine. So why spend time, money, and effort on it?

As for 970s being "junk" 980s, well, NVIDIA just did what they have always done (and what AMD, ATi before them, and Intel do as well): make a part, find the ones that don't meet your requirements, then sell them as a step down from the top of the line.

Sounds to me like your friend is trying to justify spending an extra $250 on the 980, even though he didn't get an extra $250 worth of performance over a 970.
 
So does he think any non reference PCBs are subpar and/or junk?
I agree that he is just pulling crap out of his ass. People can come up with crazy stories to justify their decisions.
 
I would like to know what sources he has to back these claims... Up front, it sounds silly.
 
I asked him for his proof, and this was his exact post:

"there not mine .. anantec and all why would they lie ?? don't you find it strange on the price difference ?? and why its so cheap.. but hay, if your good with spending you hard earned money on something like that that's your deal . all I can do is try to point this stuff out

if your not smart enough to look up this stuff then I guess you deserve the card

like I said above you get what you pay for [and some times less]

''ALL 970's should share the same PCB as 980, since, as you said, they are failed 980.''

you miss this part ??

A lot of these have been recycled or otherwise only slightly modified GTX 700/600 series designs, owing to the fact that GM204’s memory bus has been held at 256-bits and its power requirements are so low.'''"
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The more he says stuff against 970, the more he actually speaks for it.

Sorry, the goal of this thread is not trying to call out names, but since the guy seem pretty adamant on his stance regarding 980 vs 970, I wanted to know, for my own personal interest, whether there was any substance to his conclusions, because from what I knew, I couldn't find any.
 
He's upset he blew his wad on a 980 and is trying to justify it to himself.
 
melk said:
He's upset he blew his wad on a 980 and is trying to justify it to himself.
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After I read that post the OP quoted, I completely agree. There is no proof in any of that, and his command of the English language is subpar.
 
Chen, if your friend is claiming Anandtech is his source, you need to re-read the quote I pulled from their 980 launch article above. NVIDIA doesn't have a reference design for the 970 - perhaps he misunderstood that?

"Failed 980" is a bit of a misnomer, I mean, by that logic, you could probably call an i5 a "failed i7", or the entire GTX 780 range a "failed titan black". But it certainly sounds like calling it that is making him feel better about his purchase.
 
I read a LOT of posts and articles before I made my latest video card purchase. Money wasn't an issue, but I don't like wasting it either, if that makes sense. The 970 is just the best choice. I bought the Gigabyte G1 card that can easily overlocked to 980 speeds. Believe me, my epeen wanted a 980, but my brain wouldn't go for it. I mean $200+ for like 6 FPS? And that's only if you don't OC the 970....

So yes, I have to agree. I think OP wasted a couple hundred $$ and is trying to make himself feel better.
 
I do agree that the 970 provides a much better performance/cost ratio than the 980, but in all fairness, an overclocked 970 should be compared to an overclocked 980.

But this is nothing new under the sun, there always has been a price premium for the top dog in town.
 
DraginDime said:
So does he think any non reference PCBs are subpar and/or junk?
I agree that he is just pulling crap out of his ass. People can come up with crazy stories to justify their decisions.
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Exactly what I was thinking. Justifying the reason he bought a 980 over a 970. Let me guess, he games at 1080P too?
 
officer921 said:
I read a LOT of posts and articles before I made my latest video card purchase. Money wasn't an issue, but I don't like wasting it either, if that makes sense. The 970 is just the best choice. I bought the Gigabyte G1 card that can easily overlocked to 980 speeds. Believe me, my epeen wanted a 980, but my brain wouldn't go for it. I mean $200+ for like 6 FPS? And that's only if you don't OC the 970....

So yes, I have to agree. I think OP wasted a couple hundred $$ and is trying to make himself feel better.
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This
 
Yea I was in the same boat. Money was not an issue, but I also don't like throwing it out the window. I've usually had the top card offered, but also skipped the Titan and the 780ti. This round I stuck with a 970. And honestly I could immediately tell the difference at 1440p from my 780. And the price was right.
 
This depends on how you view things. The GTX 970 is "sub par" compared to the GTX 980 but that should be expected as you are buying a cheaper product in the same product line. Let's examine it both in terms of the GPU and board designs.

The GTX 980 is a full GM204 chip while the GTX 970 is cut down version. While some GM204 parts could be cut down to GTX 970 configuration simply to meet supply demands on the average it's likely they are binned due to not being able to qualify as a GTX 980. In that sense they are "failed" GTX 980s.

In terms of the board design it's a bit difficult to compare across brands but if you look at GTX 970 and 980 custom designs from the same line from an AiB the 980 design is generally what you would consider better and more expensive (eg. stronger power delivery systems, better heatsink, etc.). In that sense typically 970 board designs are sub-par compared to the 980s.

On a related note if there is indeed a higher incidence of coil whine on the GTX 970s vs 980s it will likely be due to the board design differences. If you look at 970 board designs (aside from a few specific models) the power delivery design is very different form 980 boards (reference or custom).

Now in terms of how you interpret this it depends. In reality you are getting what you are buying since the individual GPU and the board designs still have to qualify for basic standards in terms of functionality and reliability. It doesn't mean there is some kind of "hidden" flaw with 970s.
 
A lot of these have been recycled or otherwise only slightly modified GTX 700/600 series designs, owing to the fact that GM204’s memory bus has been held at 256-bits and its power requirements are so low.
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This happens a lot in industry. When there are no major memory tech, bus or TDP changes from one generation to another, Nvidia and AMD will make the next core pin-compatible to save manufacturers the cost and lead time fo validating a new PCB.

This not only saves them time to market and money, but you get a tried-and-true PCB that's been debugged for years, rather than a new creation that may have issues. That's not "cheap" in the slightest, just efficient. If the old 600/700 cards had "good enough" PCB quality, you can be assured that the new cards will also have "good enough" PCB quality. After all, they didn't change anything :D
 
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officer921 said:
I read a LOT of posts and articles before I made my latest video card purchase. Money wasn't an issue, but I don't like wasting it either, if that makes sense. The 970 is just the best choice. I bought the Gigabyte G1 card that can easily overlocked to 980 speeds. Believe me, my epeen wanted a 980, but my brain wouldn't go for it. I mean $200+ for like 6 FPS? And that's only if you don't OC the 970....

So yes, I have to agree. I think OP wasted a couple hundred $$ and is trying to make himself feel better.
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They're only about 10 percent apart from eachother at equal core mhz speeds, and they typically hit about the same. The gtx 970 is flat out the better deal unless money is truly no object for the entire build. I went for two gtx 970 cards at launch for sli with 4k gaming, oc'd em to hell and back and loving gaming life ;).

Yeah, I could have afforded to go 980 sli instead and even had planned on it, but the net price was $650 for the 970 sli at launch on a deal, vs $1100 for the 980 sli. For that kind of a cost difference, and how fast the 970 cards were already, it simply didn't make sense to pay almost 70% more of a price for 10% performance, even as a 4k user.
 
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